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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24767941">Soar Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>KageHina Week 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Day 2 - Films, KageHina Week 2020, M/M, Spirited Away AU, Studio Ghibli References, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:28:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,156</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24767941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Spirited Away Remix. When Hinata Shouyou steps onto Karasuno’s court, he meets blue like nighttime summer skies, like a dream, and memories fall into place.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>KageHina Week 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789762</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous, Kagehina Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Soar Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>YO I ACTUALLY DID THIS IN A DAY HALLELUJAH (it's 23:59 OKAY. I DID IT). Started: 12AM on June 16 until 2AM, then 7PM to 23:55 and then it was the mad dash to do tags and title this. (Blame the family for the hiking trip planned midday-evening.) Anyways, I'll be back to finish the second chapter after KageHina Week!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Hinata Shouyou steps onto Karasuno’s court, he meets blue like nighttime summer skies, like a dream, and memories fall into place.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Shouyou watches his parents nudging Natsu to try the chicken? Or duck? Some sort of bird thigh. The food amassed around the restaurant is <em> amazing </em>and tantalizing and Shouyou would chow down if the place around them didn’t generally give him the heebeegeebees.</p><p>Instead, he searches around the seemingly deserted theme park. Obviously, it can’t be deserted if there’s food on the tables. But Shouyou doesn’t see hide or hair of anybody, nor footprints on the ground. It’s very, very creepy. It looks lived in, yet he does not see another person, doesn’t hear a single soul other than his own family. When he edges closer to the end of the food stalls and eating halls, he finds a beautiful castle in gold tones and obsidian walls. Before he goes to investigate further, he hears something beneath the bridge.</p><p>Running over and climbing the railings, he leans above the top to peer below and finds traintracks— and a moving train, steam billowing from the front, chugging down the path and—</p><p>
  <em> “You can’t be here!” </em>
</p><p>Shouyou turns and meets blue. Blue like black, dark and nearly swallowing the pupil of this boy’s eyes, blue as the nighttime summer sky— </p><p>“What are you doing, dumbass, <em> move it— </em> okay, okay, I’m going to hold them off, just <em> run!” </em></p><p>Shouyou screws his face up to argue but a sense of foreboding hits him, a chill in the air, and he wants to yell and ask what the problem was, but the boy’s tugging him off the railing with easy strength and then pushes him away from the bridge. With an angry scowl,the boy pulls something out of his long-sleeved, traditional wear — is that a gumball? — uh, what, it’s enlarging? — wait, is that a <em> volleyball!? </em> — out of nowhere and somehow, when the guy blows it out, it <em> multiplies </em> and flies off and— <em> nope. </em> He’s out of here.</p><p>There must’ve been something in the food, something that even affects him after ingesting the smell, because he’s <em> clearly </em> hallucinating.</p><p>He needs to find his parents and Natsu. <em> Fast. </em></p><p>(It doesn’t take long to find three pigs, two large and one so, so very little, eating and crying and Shouyou rushes off <em> because this is insanity, how could he think those pigs were his family— </em></p><p>But his instincts, his impressions, are always right.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Open your mouth.”</p><p>“No, no, <em> no— </em> NOPE NADA— I do <em> not </em> want to turn into a pig even <em> more </em> than to disappear and die because of your evil food because I AM CURRENTLY, LITERALLY, <em> DISAPPEARING—”  </em></p><p>The black-haired boy shoves the meatbun into his mouth.</p><p>“Nonononononono—” He mumbles around the food, trying his best to not swallow a morsel.</p><p>“Dumbass!” the boy shakes him, “Unless you eat something from this world, you’ll <em> disappear!” </em></p><p>“NO!” But his hand phases right through the dark-haired boy with piercing blue-black eyes that <em> won’t stop staring at him so intently like stop. STOP. </em></p><p>Shouyou grabs the stuffed bun and places it back into the other’s hands. “How the heck does eating food from <em> here </em> make me <em> not disappear?” </em></p><p>The boy opens his mouth, pauses, and stalls. Then he shakes his head. “Okay, I didn’t memorize all the lore— hey, bad students can sense each other, I know what you’re thinking— but it works okay? Just trust me.”</p><p>“How am I supposed to just trust you with your words, idiot!?”</p><p>“Idiot??? Who you calling an idiot, y-you idiot <em> tangerine!” </em> The boy suddenly explodes. “I’m trying to <em> help </em> your ungrateful ass, because I’m a nice person, right? Right? So, just <em> EAT IT!” </em> the boy rips the bun in two and shoves the smaller piece into his mouth and the other in Shouyou’s mouth.</p><p>Those eyes are <em> way too close </em>and he gulps on instinct.</p><p>Oh. He’s no longer disappearing?</p><p>“See?” the rude, <em> still-eating-while-talking!!! </em>boy says around his meatbun, “Told you, and see, you’re not a pig either—” the boy swears as he clocks him in the face.</p><p>“YOU COULD HAVE SAID THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE INSTEAD OF SHOVING IT DOWN MY THROAT, YOU IDIOT!”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>When they cross the bridge under the boy’s spell, he sees a giant black mass dipped in gold, wearing a cat mask walk and stare at him as they pass.</p><p>It nearly breaks him, but instead, he breaths in when the glasses-wearing frog snarks and insults the boy next to him.</p><p>With a mad dash through nooks and crannies of the massive property, Shouyou finds the two of them hidden in a dark courtyard, barely illuminated by the light seeping through the paper doors leading into the bathhouse.</p><p>
  <em> “Master Yama! Master Yama!” </em>
</p><p>He hears the screeching around them, footsteps of many in the dark of the night outside despite all the commotion being generated indoors.</p><p>
  <em> “I smell something, a human intruder!” </em>
</p><p>“I’ll go distract them.”</p><p>Shouyou holds onto him like nothing else, because even if this boy is a douche, he’s the only helping hand in this entire nightmare. “Don’t go. Please don’t go!”</p><p>“You have no choice, if you want to survive here and save your family too.” There’s sympathy in those eyes, but words are spoken regardless, blunt and honest.</p><p>Somehow, Shouyou can bite his lip and nod, and it’s somehow more relieving to see the boy only leave him only after Shouyou’s gesture.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He signs on the dotted line, because he apparently needs this job.</p><p>“Your name is Shou.”</p><p>Shou nods, finding the statement odd.</p><p>But his eyes can only focus on the slumped figure, the blue-black eyes, the strangely defeated look behind.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“You know, you can’t trust that monster. Master Yama isn’t just some pretty-faced boy, y’know? His personality is the worst, he orders everyone around like he’s some emperor or king — you know, he’s got this moniker, King of the Castle — ha, as if this bathhouse could be a castle, as if he’s actually a king — and though we know he’s just parroting, it’s hard to dissociate him from his orders when he actively enforces it with that terrifying smile.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Shou is used to waking with the sun, but the warmth of the futon is the closest thing to a hug he’s gotten since he’s started working in the bathhouse. It’s awful.</p><p>Suddenly, he feels something press on the covers on his shoulder.</p><p>“Meet me at the bridge. I’ll take you to your family.”</p><p>The whisper is quick and Shou whips to look for Yama but there is not even a black thread of hair left in the space he must have occupied. It doesn’t take long to fold his sleeping quarters and sneak off under the morning light.</p><p>The spirit world is quiet in the early hours. It doesn’t remind him of home, and somehow, it makes living here for the foreseeable future… easier.</p><p>When Shou meets up with Yama, he finds out about a new, out of the way, but <em> massive </em>layout of barns that somehow escaped his notice the first time.</p><p>Yama is quiet as they move closer and closer to the barns. Shou wonders about the silence Yama brings when he’s spoken about, when he enters a room, the not-quite fear and not-quite respect, maybe influenced by the words spoken about the <em> King of the Castle </em> but—</p><p>“You may have this massive reputation, but you’re really just Softyama aren’t you?”</p><p>The other whirls to face him, <em> “What did you say?” </em></p><p>Oops. </p><p>“I mean, people keep saying how mean you are, and yeah, you don’t have the talking stuff down, but <em> what </em> you do and <em> how </em>you do stuff all matters. Your whats and hows sometimes don’t really match, y’know?”</p><p>Yama looks confused.</p><p>“You say <em> whoosh </em> but you really mean <em> wham, </em>basically.”</p><p>Yama looks <em> very </em>confused. And kinda red?</p><p>“I’m not going to listen to you prattling on nonsense, <em> stupid,” </em>is said quite heatedly, though Shou’s a bit confused and red-faced too.</p><p>“Did you just call me <em> boke? I’m not useless or clueless at all!!! </em> How the heck does noticing you being nice underneath all your nastiness mean I’m <em> stupid </em> you— you—  <em> BAKAYAMA.”  </em></p><p>Yama shivers for a second, and Shou frowns because he didn’t feel the wind, but then the other blows the fringe poking near his eyes. Small breeze? “Yeah, sure, but you’re not the one who’s got to field all the complaints about your useless cleaning. It’s like you don’t even do the job!”</p><p>“What did you say— SENPAI SAID IT WAS FINE!”</p><p>“Of course he said it was fine, because he ended up doing it <em> for </em>you.”</p><p>“Liar!”</p><p>“No wonder your puppy eyes work, you yap on and on like a real dog.”</p><p>“BAKAYAMA.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>  </p><p>Shou breaks down in tears when he sees his parents, large and engorged and pink and <em> pigs </em>and unable to remember or recognize him. </p><p>What makes him curl down into himself, tuck his knees in and <em> sob </em>, is Natsu.</p><p>There’s no way he can’t unsee it.</p><p>Natsu, tiny, with maybe a bit of orange fuzz akin to their signature hair, is keening like a lost child. Neither of the large adult pigs notice as they laze about and move on to gorge on pig slop, bumping the tiny piglet less than a third of their size scuttering around between their legs.</p><p>What made him curl down into himself, tuck his knees in and <em> sob </em>, is Natsu being unrecognized by her own parents.</p><p>“They don’t remember, and maybe your sister knows something is wrong, but it will be up to you to remember which ones they are when it comes time to free them.”</p><p>After Shou yells at them to stop eating one too much, after they fall asleep on their sides with Natsu forcing herself in-between with a squeak, Shou runs like he’s never done it before because he needs to leave, he almost can’t believe this place, that this nightmare is so true, that this reality is so cruel, and he wishes he could run forever. He doesn’t want his family to be eaten. He doesn’t want them to be pigs. He doesn’t want to be a bathhouse worker. He doesn’t want to be in this world at all!</p><p>So, he finds a nice secluded hedge and ducks down and hides his face in his knees and <em> bawls </em>.</p><p>It takes a fraction of his notice when he realizes Yama is rocking awkwardly above him.</p><p>But then Yama sighs and doesn’t say another word as he sits on his haunches by Shou’s side. He doesn’t comment as Shou cries away minutes, hours, days— </p><p>Yama’s shoulder is warm.</p><p>  </p>
<hr/><p>  </p><p>“Hinata Shouyou,” Shou reads aloud. “Shouyou?”</p><p>Suddenly, Shou realizes. No, <em> Shouyou </em>realizes. </p><p>“Wait— Wait, isn’t that my name—”</p><p>“That’s how they keep you here, under their power. Stealing our names prevents us from being able to cross back home.”</p><p>Shouyou gapes as he realizes he almost lost his <em> name. </em>How do you forget your own name?</p><p>“So, remember it, boke. You’re Shou in this world, so remember Shouyou and keep it a secret.”</p><p>It’s the first time Shouyou hears his name after losing it, the first time he’s heard it from Yama’s lips. </p><p>
  <em> Shouyou. </em>
</p><p>He will never let the name disappear.</p><p>“I no longer remember mine. It was strange, though. I remember yours.” Shouyou doesn’t have an idea how to break the tension, how to say anything to this beautiful, tragic saviour who has been kind and honest and hasn’t let him drown in this wretched nightmare. He wants to start with <em> sorry </em> and <em> thank you </em> and— </p><p>One word, two words, three— </p><p>Something white is shoved in Shouyou’s face. “Here. Eat. You must be hungry.”</p><p>It’s a meatbun.</p><p>“I… I don’t want to.” Shouyou doesn’t even know how he can stomach food after hearing about Yama (who’s not even Yama), after seeing his parents (who don’t recognize him), after— </p><p>“I put a spell on it for strength. Eat. You’ll need it for today after everything.”</p><p>Shouyou reluctantly but carefully takes the meatbun, imagining another refusal could wind up with it being choked down his throat again. It smells familiar. He takes a bite— and it’s gone. He’s swallowed it all, inhaled it, chomped with three bites and he must look like a chipmunk but he doesn’t care anymore because this meatbun is the only good thing that’s happened today and it tastes like ambrosia in the form of white starch and packaged meat.</p><p>Yama’s voice cuts through his sudden second bout of waterworks in less than an hour since he woke up, “Here, eat more.” </p><p>Shouyou sobs and cries and eats.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Shouyou’s day has just started, but with a couple of magical meatbuns and Yama’s presence, he’s ready for the day.</p><p>He looks up at the bathhouse, and the sun cuts into his eyes from his north, so he turns south to stare up at the sky— </p><p>A black and blue mythical creature flies above.</p><p>Shouyou blinks.</p><p>It’s gone.</p>
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